Digital Records, Web Archiving, and Outreach! CPR Day Recap

by Greg Wiedeman, University of New York-Albany (and Elisabeth Butler, U.S. Senate)

This year’s CPR Day (August 3) brought us to the top of Georgia State University’s Bennett Brown Commerce Building in Downtown Atlanta. Just a brief, if sweaty, walk from the SAA Annual Meeting proper, the chandeliers and the 1950s-era bar provided a truly southern backdrop for the program. The room was bustling with archivists grappling with their experiences working with government offices, the possibilities of web archives, and the challenges of digital records.

The first panel looked at the relationship between academic and government archives and how to develop effective collaboration. Hope Grebner talked about how Drake University is grappling with the Senator Tom Harkin Papers. She conveyed a very positive experience about working with Senator Harkin, noting how his many requests for old speeches has boosted their reference stats and better equipped them to show value to stakeholders.  Danielle Emerling also had a positive experience, but cautioned that politicians are used to having a large staff and tend to treat archivists as staffers. Next, Herb Hartsook—backed by a vivid screensaver of bouncing bubbles—gave a colorful account of his experiences working at both government archives and an academic library.

For the panel on web archiving, the Electronic Records Committee brought in a group of web archives experts to overview their experiences capturing the internet for congressional collections. Jefferson Bailey spoke on the Internet Archive’s crawling practices for political collections. Next, Dory Bower talked about the intricacies of the federal records laws on government web sites. She gave an overview of the Government Publishing Office’s program to preserve these ever-changing records. Roger Christman discussed the Library of Virginia’s efforts to document the Virginia congressional representatives’ web presence since 2007 and their experience as an Archive-It early-adopter. Finally, Tammi Kim gave a talk on her former role running the University of Delaware’s political web archiving program. The panel’s work seemed so comprehensive that one listener asked the panel about the role of congressional repositories–what should they collect? The experts seemed to agree that there is an important role for smaller congressional-focused archives in documenting some of the more difficult-to-capture web content, such as social media and shifting content outside of a representative’s official website.

After a lunch featuring talk of documenting Burning Man and the—um—activities of New York politicians, the program continued. Due to a last-minute schedule change, CPR performed a seamless audible and revived a really useful panel from ACSC Annual Meeting on working with SysAdmins to secure senate offices’ electronic records. The panel gave us a look behind the curtain into the digital records practices of these offices and their use of technology like SharePoint. They stressed the importance of early collaboration with member offices and the establishment of a records transfer plan well in advance of the office’s closing. The presentation went a long way toward demystifying this process for congressional repositories.

Next was a session on outreach strategies, moderated by Jan Zastrow.  One of the speakers, Leigh McWhite (University of Mississippi), had an especially interesting talk on how the special collections used the Continuing Legal Education (CLE) requirement to attract attendees to an event featuring the papers of a Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court.  The Richard Russell Library (Georgia), represented by Jan Hebbard, employed a completely different tactic–food–to get people involved with the papers of Senator Russell, who was instrumental in passing the school lunch program.  Using this as a “hook”, the Library staff invited local top chefs to come up with healthful school lunch menus and had kids vote on which ones they liked!  Robert Rubero (Senator Claude Pepper Library (Florida)), then discussed how he uses social media to widely exhibit the Senator’s papers and how they integrate them with students’ projects and research.  The object of the session was to help attendees see their collections in new ways, and it succeeded!

The day concluded with a workshop, led by Laura Litwer, on the topic of (re)appraisal, which focused on how or if born-digital records have changed the types of records congressional papers repositories want or will want in the future.  Have electronic records made appraisal decisions easier or more complicated?  Have electronic record formats made certain types of overlooked records, such as casework, more desirable candidates for inclusion?  How will new ways to mine/curate digital content going to shape political collections and challenge the ethical requirements of repository archivists?  These were just some of the wide-ranging issues discussed by the group, and in view of the increasing dominance of digital records, a necessary conversation.

Electronic Records at the 2016 CPR Pre-Conference

By Danielle Emerling, Assistant Curator, Congressional and Political Papers Archivist
West Virginia & Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries

The annual Congressional Papers Roundtable pre-conference program is fast approaching, and several sessions address issues with born digital records.

In the morning, a panel titled “Web Archiving Congress” will explore the state of the congressional web. Panelists from state and university repositories, the Federal Web Archiving Group, and the Internet Archive will discuss their approaches to web archiving. As many of us well know, members of Congress have been using the web to communicate with constituents since the 1990s, and they increasingly use social media in a dialogue with constituents, the media, and each other. The session encourages the audience to think about how CPR members can work together to archive Congress’ web presence and what that collaboration could look like.

In the afternoon, archivists with information systems experience will provide a view of security for digital materials from both IT and archives perspectives. The conversation will give archivists insights in order to work more effectively with systems departments at their own institutions and with vendors. The panelists will provide tips for answering donors’ questions about how the archives will keep digital records secure over time.

Finally, the program will end with a moderated discussion about “(Re)Appraising.” Questions will address both paper and electronic records appraisal, and the audience is encouraged to think about appraisal in the context of our hybrid collections.

This year’s CPR pre-conference will take place at Georgia State University’s Commerce Building in the Bennett Brown Room. More details about the program are available in the CPR summer 2016 newsletter.

Electronic Records Modular Manual: A New Initiative

The Electronic Records Committee (ERC) of the Congressional Papers Roundtable is pleased to announce a new initiative: an electronic records manual in modular form. The intention is to provide documentation for a possible method to address a need in an electronic records workflow, such as website scoping, checksums, or file redaction. Each module includes workflow steps and diagrams, tool instructions, and everything else an institution needs to get it started on accessioning, processing, and preserving its congressional electronic collections.  Once enough modules are written, an institution can mix and match them to create an electronic records workflow that meets its needs.

The first five modules were written by ERC members and cover donor discussions, file format identification, creating AIPS, redaction, and web crawling. Community members are invited to contribute their own process documentation. The goal is to build up a collection of modules that offer alternatives to each task that makes up the electronic records workflow, from donor discussions through access.

Modules are offered separately or in a portfolio (to which institutions can add additional modules as they become available).

When formulating this initiative, the ERC put together an outline for further modules. Please contact the ERC if you would like to contribute a module and we will provide you with suggestions.

Defining Our Audiences: A Recap from the 2016 ACSC Meeting

Panelists

• Vikram Kulkarni, Systems Administrator, Office of Senator Patrick Leahy
• Kate Stewart, Archivist, Office of Senator Barbara Mikulski
• Hope Grebner, Political Papers Archivist, Drake University
• John Caldwell, National Digital Stewardship Resident in the Senate Historical Office

The theme of this year’s Association of Centers for the Study of Congress (ACSC) meeting was “Defining Our Audiences.” Now, more than ever, it is essential we define our audience when it comes to preserving electronic records. The panel entitled “Working With a New Audience to Secure Members’ Electronic Records: The Future is Now!” brought together a Systems Administrator from a member’s current office, an archivist working for an office that is closing, a repository archivist that received records from a retired Senator, and the Senate’s National Digital Stewardship Resident Fellow. The discussion that followed centered on issues and challenges when it comes to capturing, managing, and preserving electronic records at various stages of the lifecycle of congressional offices.

The first round of questions asked panelist’s to describe the electronic records environment within which they are working. The systems administrator started the conversation by discussing Senators’ records in a current office environment. He emphasized that congressional offices vary greatly by member and that each has their own practices when it comes to the role of the systems administrator in the organization and management of office data. This doesn’t just apply to electronic records, but is a result of the nature of the Senate where each office acts as its own entity, separate from every other office.

The closing office archivist continued the conversation by discussing her experiences as she works to close a longstanding Senate office. Since her Senator does not yet have an agreement with a repository, she isn’t able to work with anyone yet on the specifics of transfer, but has taken steps on her end to ensure preservation. This includes working with the systems administrator in the office, and surveying staff members about the records they create, and where they are stored. Understanding the organizational practices of staff is key when it comes to preserving electronic records for future donation.

The repository archivist described how her experiences working to transfer the Senator’s files involved interactions with the Senator’s office before and after the office closed, both in the state and in Washington DC. The Senator’s systems administrator was an invaluable resource as they worked through the process, enabling her to better communicate what she needed and generally easing the process.

In the second round the panelists discussed data management in the office. In the offices he has been involved with, the Senate systems administrator emphasized the need for an organized shared drive as early as possible. He recalled working with the Chief of Staff of a new office to set up an organizational system for the shared drive creating a folder hierarchy based on office functions and requiring naming conventions for files. He also had staff sign a memo in which they agreed to adhere to the practices in place. This made the office much more efficient and made retrieving information easier for current and new staff. He noted that even if the office changed the original organizational structure, having a system in place made such transitions much easier.

The closing archivist mentioned that there had been no formal records management policy in place before she arrived. In the past an attempt had been made to organize the share drive which helped her understand the office environment. However, without ongoing enforcement and the inevitable turnover of staff in a Senate office, maintaining that organization was a challenge. She is now working to restore order and clean up the share drive based on the previous organizational structure.

The repository archivist recalled that after the office closed, data was sent on hard drives which included CSS data from the vendor, photos from the Senate Photo Studio, office files, and scans of copied committee records. These materials arrived at different times and were ingested into the repository’s system as they arrived. Although she was in communication with the office shortly before closing, she felt that establishing that relationship earlier in the tenure of the member might have made the transfer process more efficient. This would be particularly helpful in an office that did not have the benefit of working with a systems administrator who has an awareness of repository needs.

The final round of questions involved preservation issues that arise with closing and transfer procedures. The Systems Administrator discussed how he moves departed staff files to a separate archives drive and provides new staffers access to a copy of their predecessors’ files rather than the original.  The key point is maintaining an archival drive to hold the files of departed staff in preparation for future transfer. He performs fixity checks when moving records to the archives drive.

The closing office archivist reviewed her plans for the rest of the year which include digitizing files through the Senate’s Printing and Graphics office and moving staffers’ electronic files to an archives drive. She also plans to work with the repository more closely once one is decided upon.

The repository archivist discussed how she has stayed in contact with the Senator and how retrieving information from the archives not only helped demonstrate the value of the archives, but also enhanced donor relations with the library and university. She discussed the usefulness of an ongoing relationship with the Senator’s staff and Systems Administrator; she is just starting to process the materials and they have been an invaluable resource to her as questions arise.

After the discussion between the three, the session was wrapped up by the Senate’s NDSR fellow who relayed information he has learned from interviews with personal office systems administrators as part of his time in the Senate. He reiterated that there is a great variety of practices within different offices, and that while an office might not be taking full digital preservation measures with their electronic records, they are not willfully neglecting or causing harm to the records. Often simple, additional steps can be easily layered into existing processes, assuring future availability without impeding current office functions. He stressed the importance of creating separate archives drives for offices and running fixity checks, particularly when records are packaged or moved, to ensure data integrity at different times. He also discussed his work on various tools and utilities that offices may use to help them.

He summarized the panel discussion by offering five final takeaways: 1) Early collaboration with the member office is very important with electronic records. Repositories that expect or hope to receive a Congressional member’s materials should make contact so they can start asking questions. 2) Interactions/meetings with the office should include the systems administrator, archivist or person tasked with records management, the press or communications team, office manager, State Director, Chief of Staff. 3) Ask specific, targeted questions about how electronic records are managed in the office, such as use of SharePoint, how far back records go, and contextual information about records creators. 4) A comprehensive inventory including number of files, volume of data, format identification and determining where various types of records are stored is key in helping repositories know what to ask for. 5) Set up a plan for transfer with the office well in advance of closing. With electronic records, you can’t afford to wait and in the Congressional environment an office may need to close quickly.  Proactive planning is hugely helpful and archivists must reach out to new audiences to ensure long term preservation of electronic records.

L to R: John Caldwell, Hope Grebner, Kate Stewart, Vik Kulkarni, Katie Delacenserie, Alison White; Photo Credit: Danielle Emerling

Welcome to the CPR Electronic Records Committee Website

By Danielle Emerling, Electronic Records Committee Co-Chair

In 2009, faced with a deluge of questions and concerns about electronic records in congressional collections, leaders of the Congressional Papers Roundtable carried out a
survey to address the extent of electronic records held by repositories and how these resources were managed. The results revealed major dilemmas for congressional archives. Few repositories had policies or standards in place to manage electronic records. Most lacked staff to perform electronic records management tasks. And several could not access a significant portion of the electronic records in congressional collections. 

Recognizing an urgent need for leadership in this area, the Electronic Records Task Force was formed, and in 2012, after several successful initiatives, the group became the standing Electronic Records Committee (ERC).

The Electronic Records Committee continues the important work of updating and creating resources to assist roundtable members with electronic records management. This website is the latest effort to provide easy access to sample electronic records policies, recommendations for acquiring and managing electronic records, and lists of vendors, funding opportunities, and digital tools.

As many archivists know, modern congressional collections pose major challenges because they contain large quantities of digital files, obsolete media, proprietary software, and numerous formats.

This is a place to address those issues together:

Case Studies

The ERC promotes the work of roundtable members and non-members who work with digital resources in congressional and political papers. We invite you to submit case studies, Q&As, project updates, and lessons learned. Topics for case studies might include archival management, testing and using digital tools, implementation of standards, and analyses of different types of congressional data.

Sample Repository Documents

The ERC encourages sharing policy statements, workflows, procedures, and other operational documents, even in draft form. Through this exchange, we can help one another to develop good and common practices, and move toward best practices, by sharing information early and often. We all know there is no perfect solution to digital challenges, but it’s important to start somewhere.

Submit your Questions

The ERC has a unique composition of archivists from repositories, Capitol Hill, and the National Archives and Records Administration, which gives us the opportunity to explore congressional electronic records management from multiple perspectives and throughout the records life cycle. We hope that you will join our conversation. Specifically, we are beginning a monthly series, “Ask an SA,” in which a systems administrator on the Hill answers a question posed by a congressional repository archivist. The Q&A can be posted anonymously to promote a more thorough exchange.

CPR and the ERC have a great history of activity and collaboration. The ERC hopes this site and its resources will offer another forum for exchanging information and informing one another’s work in this critical and fast-changing area of congressional collections management.